Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) shot back at a question asked during a governors panel by saying not all Republicans are weird.
Actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the Democratic Governors Association hosted a panel with the eight Democratic women who are state governors. At the end of the panel discussion, Louis-Dreyfus asked the governors questions that were submitted by her podcast listeners, including one asking why Republicans are so weird.
“They didn’t use to be weird,” Mills said. “I grew up in a Republican family, and we have a solid group of Republicans in Maine who are not supporting Trump, who are supporting Kamala Harris because they know the traditional Republican Party is not about Trump and never was. He has purged anybody who was free-thinking, and the traditional conservative Republican, they don’t have a place to go anymore, so they’re not all weird. But the Trump MAGA Republicans are weird.”
Louis-Dreyfus, who is known for her sitcom roles in “Seinfeld” and “Veep,” in which she played a U.S. vice president, opened the panel with a quip about Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), saying Donald Trump’s running mate would call the panel “a coven of semi-menstruating witches.” She then gave the governors a pop quiz, asking them to name their state flower. (They all passed.) Louis-Dreyfus spoke with the governors about a variety of topics, including the status of women’s reproductive rights since the loss of Roe v. Wade’s protections in 2022.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that after Roe was overturned, she went to a vigil at Prospect Park in Brooklyn and said it was a “moment of pain” but also strength.
“I held sobbing women in my arms,” Hochul said. “It broke my heart to know that something that my mother’s generation fought for, I certainly took for granted, that my daughter Katie’s generation now has lost and I’m going to fight like hell to get back for my granddaughter.”
A year after the Supreme Court decision, Hochul signed two bills into law to increase access to abortion pills and over-the-counter contraceptives for New Yorkers.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly praised her state for becoming the first to vote to protect abortion rights after the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health stripped away the national right. She said the Dobbs decision has “awoken people” to not take reproductive rights for granted.
“I hope they remember this so their granddaughters don’t have to go through this,” she said.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills delivers her State of the State address on Jan. 30 at the State House in Augusta. At a panel discussion Wednesday, she said she grew up in a Republican family and remembers a time before the rise of weirdness.
The panel also had its lighthearted moments, such as when New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spoke of how humor can be an “effective tool when things are hot and tense.” She recalled pulling a prank on a fellow member of Congress (who remained unnamed), taking all the furniture out of his office, laying down sod and then putting the furniture back in place.
Louis-Dreyfus asked if there were advantages to being a female governor, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said that although there are unique barriers and hurdles for a woman, an advantage is being underestimated.
“I think it’s a huge advantage to come in where people write us off, don’t expect us to be as deep on issues or as thoughtful at articulating a vision or as tough as everyone on this panel is,” Whitmer said.
The governors also spoke about electing women across the ballot, encouraging women to run for any and all offices. Hochul quipped that men often don’t have any qualifications, so women shouldn’t worry about that either.
“We got a guy who’s like, ‘I’m a billionaire, I want to be president and run the country,’ and he did,” Hochul said. “So women should not have to have the greatest résumé in the world to start getting into the game.”
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